This book sounds great as a premise, but overall felt a little flat to me. The art was very cute, but the entire plot centers around being at an art camp, so why not have the illustrations in color, or at least a section of it. I felt like the romance wasn't developed enough. The ending was so sudden I feel like I didn't get any closure on anything the main character was worried about.

Thanks Algonquin Young Readers, Marika McCoola, Aatmaja Pandya and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Slip follows Jade as she attends an art summer camp just after her best friend Phoebe attempts suicide. Jade must figure out how to balance the intense workload while dealing with the feelings of Phoebe’s attempt. While she’s trying to figure out her feelings, there’s a sudden rush of feelings for another bunk at the camp, complicating Jade’s life even more. Jade soon realizes that the variety of emotions she’s experience can be turned into lovely art and tries to figure out how to bring it all to life. The artwork within the graphic novel was gorgeous and brought the story to life. I enjoyed reading Jade’s story.

I really enjoyed the art style of this book! I really enjoyed how this book depicted the MCs relationship with her art in this and how she navigated emotions.

I think this book lacked alot of the emotion it was trying to convey. It wanted us to feel bad for Pheobe, but didn’t give us any context or really anything about her at all.
This art program is really weird. Its just in the woods? only has 4 students? Shes living alone in a campers as a teen? Seriously what is this place it felt weird
I wish the romance wasnt here at all. It had n emotion or build up and was just lacking overall.

This book comes out on June 7, 2022.

Thank you so much to Algonquin Books for sending an arc of this my way in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this a lot more than I thought I would. Too many times in stories you see what leads someone to attempt to take their life but you don’t see what happens to those around them and I like how jade has to come to terms with what has happened to her best friend. The art is so beautiful and the story was fantastic.

Slip is a YA graphic novel that follows Jade at art camp after her friend, Phoebe, attempts suicide. We watch Jade deal with her friend's attempt, her connection with art, and a romance between her and Mary.

First of all, the art is gorgeous! It was adorable and fit perfectly. It isn't in color but it still had a cute sketch type art style which works well with this story. The plot was quite interesting and a little weird. There was some magical type elements which I hadn't been expecting so that was interesting to read about. I did feel as though it was never really explained which was sort of odd.

This graphic novel discusses many tough topics which I feel were mostly well done. It was a very intense graphic novel but overall mixes these topics in well with cuter moments. The romance usually brought those moments and they were really fun to read about.

Overall, I enjoyed this graphic novel and definitely recommend to anyone who wants a quick but impactful read!

Book: Slip
Author: Marika McCoola
Rating: 3 Out 5 Stars

I would like to thank the publisher, Algonquin Young Readers, for sending me an ARC.

This is another one of those stories that sounds like a good idea, but just ends up lacking in the final product. We follow a young girl who is at a summer art camp with the hopes of getting into her dream art school. However, she is struggling with her art. We see her have to work through this difficulty. However, this isn’t all that she is dealing with. We see her having to come to terms with her best friend’s attempted sucuide and her own romantic feelings towards another girl. It’s a lot. She bottles up these emotions and really doesn’t know how to express it. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do about these feelings and is just really struggling with finding a way to make sense of it.

This, I thought, was a great set up. This should have been the makings of a great book. However, I found that it was lacking a lot. The emotions that we were supposed to feel towards both the characters and what they were going through just wasn’t there. I mean, this is some tough stuff. This are things that teenagers deal with. However, the impact in the book was just missing. If you are going to have to set up for a story like this, you have to have something to bring it home. You have to give your readers something to latch unto and to have a reason to become fully invested. The reason was there, but the punch wasn’t. Had the author been able to deliver on the emotional side of the book, I think we would have had a much stronger story. You can’t have this great set up and lack on the things to make the story great. We need a reason. We need something to hold onto to.

The artwork was there. Like with the writing, the artwork did set up the scenes fine, but was missing something to bring it home. In graphic novels, you are counting on both the dialogue and the art to bring it home. The emotions and the way the characters were shown to us just, again, didn’t have that punch that I was looking for. Whenever I am reading a story like this, with the high stakes, I want to have the emotions hit me. I want to feel the pain that the characters are going through. Sadly, that just didn’t happen.

The bones of a great story are here, but I just feel like it is missing something. I feel like we need more of an emotional impact in order to make it hit the way it is supposed to.

This book comes out on June 7, 2022.

Honest review from my 9 year old daughter.

The illustrations were fantastic. I really liked the story and how everything came together. I really liked this one!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book. First, I found the art style of this book very beautiful and compelling and one of the main reasons I kept reading. I loved the selective use of color and the imagery displayed throughout the story. My dilemma is the writing. I think it fails to accurately capture certain emotions and convey the characters’ motivation. Even though our main character deals with issues that I could find relatable ultimately, I felt no connection towards her. It’s a good story that I wished I liked more.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of Slip. Trigger warning for readers: attempted suicide. I enjoyed this graphic novel and it was a nice, quick read. I like that Jade finally realized that she can be there for Phoebe without being down her throat and needing to know everything that’s happening. You can be a best friend and still give people space. I enjoyed the way Jade realized that while working on pieces of pottery and how she had to break pieces and let them go to make better ones. Thanks again for the ARC!

Although it's a quick read, this is a super sweet and thought-provoking graphic novel. It hits upon difficult topics like suicide, mental health, and feelings of inadequacy in a way that feels realistic and relatable to adolescents. I loved the hopeful ending, the slightly fantastical elements with clay animals coming to life, and the message that it's ok to love and take care of yourself. I also enjoyed that there was a cute love story between two girls, but there was no big deal made over it being a same-sex couple, or any angst about sexuality.

This story made me cry. Sometimes there are no words or art to describe the pain and catharsis, but you do what you can to create, to move on with life when it's completely fallen apart and you don't know how to cope. I'm totally rereading, and may buy a physical copy so as to relish in the art.

The story in itself was beautiful and heart wrenching at times. There’s a lot of hurt and doubts and self-discovery.
It can be difficult to read, with subjects like depression and suicide attempts, guilt and anger. I liked the artwork, even though it sometimes was hard to see a difference between characters.

What made me not enjoy this book as much as I hoped was the pacing, I think. It felt off and made me lose focus on the story multiple times. And that made me lose some interest, as well.

/ Denise

Thanks to Netgaley for advance E-reading copy of the graphic novel Slip, which is about anteen's struggle with attending an art summer camp/internship after her best friend attempts suicide. It's a graphic novel that deals with heavy topics such as suicide, anxiety, loneliness and mental health. Through her artwork, Jade is on a journey of self-identity and discovery that is paralleled in her attempt to figure out who she is as an artist. Her feelings are fully expressed. The story was heart-wrenching and beautifully illustrated.

I enjoyed 'Slip'. It was hard to read at times, given it deals with topics I can find triggering (depression, anxiety, isolation, loneliness, and general mental health issues). I found it particularly difficult to read about how these issues can impact loved ones, in addition to the person suffering from them first-hand. What I found difficult to read about is particularly what I thought was so important about this book.

This one has the feeling of being... Unresolved. I think it makes sense with the subject matter, particularly since Jade is tangential to Phoebe's troubles and the story revolves around Jade.

The pacing was off - to the point where I kept flipping back to check if I'd accidentally skipped pages. And the art style was inconsistent in a way that didn't appear intentional; I liked the use of pops of color versus the passages in black and white, but there were whole pages that still looked like bare sketches. Could that be a product of the fact that this was an arc? Possibly; but I've never had a manga / graphic novel arc that doesn't feel finished before.

I will say that the way Jade's emotions and feelings of impotence were expressed was phenomenal

I loved the concept of Slip--focusing on the effect that suicide can have on the person's loved ones. And especially as a teenager, Jade is already struggling with finding her place in the world and learning how to be a good friend as well as how to be herself apart from her friends as she prepares for college. And when her best friend Phoebe attempts suicide, all of these start to feel more urgent. Jade's guilt over moving on and having fun while her friend is suffering was portrayed very well and felt realistic for how a teenager would feel in that situation. I also thought the art style really contributed to the work--I loved the very sparse use of color, which is even more meaningful when it is used. I'd recommend this book to teenagers who like realistic fiction on tough topics, and to kids who are fans of the graphic novel adaptations of Speak and Long Way Down.

I will have to wait until publication to check Slip out again. I tried to download the copy twice on the Netgalley app and Pocketbook and the formatting seems to be the same. All the words run together where it makes it difficult to read a single sentence. I understand trying to protect books from pirating and other copyright issues. But making a book unreadable to the reviewer is not the best way to do it. If that's what happened here. I can't wait to properly check the book out. It looks really interesting and I really like the art style.

I loved the concept for this book. The main character is searching for meaning in her artwork based on what is happening in her life. After her friend's suicide attempt Jade goes to a month-long art intensive. While there she immerses herself in her work hoping to find meaning. I love how it described her tools of the pottery trade, it wasn't afraid to get technical. It made this part of the story feel real. For me, what lost me, was the relationship between Jade and Mary. It felt very thin from the start. Their first kiss felt rushed and it didn't seem to evolve much from there. I know there isn't a lot of time for character relationship development in a book this length, but it seemed very thin and not mature.

This is a heart wrenching story of a girl who is struggling to find herself and discover her talents while her best friend is recovering from a suicide attempt. Through her artwork, the main character is on a journey of self-identity and discovery that is paralleled in her attempt to figure out who she is as an artist. Punctuated by moments of sweetness with a budding romance, this book is filled with a heavy concept but has moments of levity. I think it perfectly shows how life goes on and how hard it is to join in on fun when you're dealing with something particularly difficult.

I enjoyed the magical realism concepts and love how it's in black and white so that the pops of red make the really difficult moments have more weight. The illustrations are great and I loved the little details of showing how Jade does her ceramic work.

I will definitely keep this in my classroom library as an offering for free reading for students.

Right before Jade leaves for her Art intensive camp, her friend Pheobe attempts suicide. Jade now must struggle with the weight of her emotions while trying to figure out what art she will create.

Slip was a powerful read and it felt honest with its emotions. I really empathized with Jade and she really felt like a fully realized person to me. As an artist, I could relate to all the questions about why you create. A lot of the critiques also brought me back to art school. It also shows how making art can be so cathartic, powerful, and healing. The linework was very lovely and I loved how the reds were used.